You think it would be hot. Nope.
You think it would be quiet. Nope.
You think it would be dark. Nope.
You imagine a peaceful evening under the stars away from civilization.
Well, the reality is, there were no stars, we were so cold we slept in everything we had with us as well as three wool blankets each, the lights in our tent wouldn’t turn off, and there were about twenty cats running around outside, across the roof of the tent, making meowing and fighting and growling noises. It was definitely the worst night of sleep ever. We got up at 4am to check if the sky was clear and hoped for stars but did not see any.
Woke at 6:30am, basically rolled out of bed and onto a camel in the dark. The hour back was bad. Immediately there was pain in my legs and butt and well, there was no way to get comfortable. The first half hour was bad, the second half hour was like, please please get me off of this camel and feed me some breakfast.
We did get breakfast eventually, but more importantly, there was a warm room to sit inside and heat back up. They offered us a shower but it was so cold and we had an 8 hour drive in a van ahead of us so we opted to stay gross and look forward to a warm shower and bed when we got back.
The drive was miserably long, it took from about 10am pickup by the desert until 9pm striving back at our hostel.
It was very close to not being worth it by the end. We were seated in the back of the van and could barely sleep with all the bumps, we kept having to stop so all the Germans on our bus could smoke, the heat did not reach the back of the bus, the gross Germans left all of their garbage on the bus making everything feel more grimy, we smelled like camels, and while we were driving through the mountains....it started SNOWING. Yes, snowing. This caused traffic and so when we were finally only an hour away, we were then stuck in bad traffic for two more hours.
Finally, the icing on the cake. We get to our hostel, looking forward to a hot shower, I ask the front desk for a towel rental, and—they are “out” of large towels. Being the exhausted baby that I am, I cry as I walk up to the room with three little towels feeling like the world is ending.
Thank goodness for wine and fire after the shower.
Was it all worth it? Yes.
Would I do it again? No way. :)
